This application relates generally to wireless communication circuitry, and more particularly, to electronic devices that have wireless communication circuitry that supports multiple radio access technologies.
Electronic devices such as portable computers and cellular telephones are often provided with wireless communication capabilities. For example, electronic devices may use long-range wireless communication circuitry such as cellular telephone circuitry and WiMax (IEEE 802.16) circuitry. Electronic devices may also use short-range wireless communication circuitry such as WiFi® (IEEE 802.11) circuitry and Bluetooth® circuitry.
In some devices, it may be desirable to support multiple radio access technologies. For example, it may be desirable to support newer radio-access technologies for handling data sessions and older radio-access technologies for supporting voice calls. Examples of different radio-access technologies that have been used in cellular telephones include Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) (e.g., CDMA2000 including standards such as CDMA2000 1XRTT), and Long Term Evolution (LTE).
In theory, an electronic device may support any number of desired radio access technologies by incorporating sufficient hardware resources into the device. For example, a device may operate an independent wireless circuit and a dedicated antenna for each radio access technology. In practice, however, such a scheme may be impractical. Besides the inefficiency of including a different radio chipset and antenna for each supported radio-access technology, this approach may not guarantee immunity from interference among the various radio access technologies.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved ways in which to support multiple radio access technologies in an electronic device.